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Sega completes purchase of Rovio for $776 million
Sega Sammy has completed its purchase of ‘Angry Birds’ developer Rovio, officially plunking down a cool $776 million to acquire the company. The deal was first floated back in April, but both companies had to jump through some finalization and regulatory hoops. Sega’s hoping the purchase will give them a stronger foothold in the mobile space, despite the golden days of ‘Angry Birds’ fandom passing almost 15 years ago.
You can dine like it's 2013 at New York's Angry Birds cafe
Rovio is opening the first Angry Birds-themed restaurant on July 8th, 2023 called "iSwii by Angry birds."
Sega is buying Angry Birds maker Rovio for $776 million
The deal is for $776 million.
The original 'Angry Birds' game returns to app stores
The remake costs 99 cents, but it doesn't have in-app purchases.
Rovio gives up on its mobile game streaming service
Angry Birds developer Rovio has quietly wound down its mobile game streaming service. First spotted by Gamasutra, the official Hatch website now has a message explaining that the platform was retired on December 31st, 2020. Rovio hasn't provided a reason for the closure, but it's safe to assume that the concept simply never took off.
Build (and destroy) your own levels in ‘Angry Birds VR’
Angry Birds fans can get creative with their pig-destroying shenanigans, as Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs just received an update that adds a stage editor to the game. This is the first-ever level builder for the series, according to developer Resolution Games. Players can place blocks, planks of wood, explosives and pigs in an environment, setting up challenging structural puzzles or cathartic domino-effect demolitions.
'Angry Birds' turns 10 years old today
If you're already struggling with the idea of entering a whole new decade in a couple weeks' time, here's something that's going to make you feel even older: Angry Birds is 10 years old today. In kid terms, it's on the cusp of middle school and it's probably started answering back.
This Angry Birds 'Venting Machine' is made for you to attack
Rovio is aiming to do something a bit different for the tenth anniversary of Angry Birds on December 11th. What started out as an addictive mobile iPhone game has morphed into a multimedia giant, spanning two films, virtual reality and tons of merchandise. Now, together with the creative firm Droga5, the company wants to let let you express anger in real life with its "Venting Machine." It's exactly what it sounds like: a vending machine that you can punch, shake and shout at in the middle of Times Square's maelstrom of activity. Once you're done, you'll get a small prize that'll hopefully help you chill out a bit.
Mobile game streaming service Hatch is available in the UK
When it comes to game streaming, it's not just the likes of Microsoft, Google and Sony who are trying to capture players' attention. There's a mobile-focused option too, and it's now available in the UK.
‘Angry Birds: Isle of Pigs’ washes ashore on PlayStation VR
If you're an Angry Birds diehard, you'll be happy to hear that Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs is available on PlayStation VR for $14.99. And Rovio and Resolution Games have added 13 new levels of play. Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs launched on Vive and Oculus Rift in February, and it looks like that was just the beginning. In addition to the new platform, the game makers hope to have 100 levels available by the end of the year.
'Angry Birds AR' on iOS lets you fling fowl in the real world
Angry Birds has already made the leap from smartphones to augmented reality and VR. But now, Rovio is bringing some of those lessons back to the iPhone. With Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs, the latest game in the blockbuster franchise, you'll be able to take down evil swine in your living room -- or anywhere else you can find a flat surface. It uses Apple's ARKit to construct virtual stages atop the real world, while you use your phone as a slingshot to topple them with irate birds. Isle of Pigs is available for pre-order today on iOS devices, and it'll officially launch as a free app later this spring (you can bet there will be a plethora of micro-transactions).
First 'Angry Birds 2' trailer warns that winter is coming
Depending on your age, the Angry Birds movie was either cool beans or just a cynical ploy to sell more plush toys. But nobody really expected it to silence the haters by raking in over $352 million on a $73 million budget. And so a sequel was inevitably greenlit and today marks the release of its first trailer. The clip stars new antagonist Zeta (voiced by Leslie Jones), a tropical bird who decides to fling snowballs from her frozen island at the paradise those green pigs and feathered friends call home.
The first Angry Birds VR game puts the slingshot in your hand
In the ten years since the game's original release in 2009, Angry Birds has become both a pop icon and marketing juggernaut, spawning countless sequels, spinoffs, merchandising tie-ins and even feature-length movies. Now, the feathered flock of pig-popping fliers is coming to the Vive and Oculus Rift in Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs.
'Angry Birds' makes its Magic Leap debut
Magic Leap's long-awaited augmented reality headset finally debuted over a month ago, even if its $2,300 price tag makes it much too extravagant for most of us. Still, it's a pretty big step forward for consumer-grade AR, and the company is betting big on developers to create the content library it needs. One such developer is Rovio, which announced it's bringing its most popular game franchise -- Angry Birds -- to the platform.
Facebook's 'playable ads' bring game demos to the news feed
Facebook's next foray into the gaming space is giving players a chance to try mobile games out before they download them. The social network is calling them "Playable Ads," which is fairly self-explanatory. There's a lot of advertising mumbo-jumbo in Facebook's announcement, but the key takeaway is that you'll be able to play a brief section of a given mobile title within the News Feed (from the App Store or Google Play, not a Facebook game) without actually downloading it. Google has tested similar with its Instant Apps and plenty of free-to-play titles have playable advertisements stuffed into their experiences.
A cloud service for mobile gaming isn't as dumb as it sounds
We're reached a point where cloud gaming finally makes sense. The technology that exists now is beyond what was available to famous failures like OnLive and many others you could say were ahead of their time. Servers, the consoles and computers we have in our homes, and the speedy internet connections that feed them are now capable of mimicking the experience of playing a game stored on your local machine. Big companies like Sony and NVIDIA have gotten involved over the past few years for just this reason, and one upstart believes it's spotted an unfilled niche in the market. What Spotify has done for music and Netflix for TV, Hatch wants to do for mobile gaming.
'Angry Birds Champions' lets players fling pheasants for real money
Angry Birds Champions is now available on iOS devices and through the developer's website, allowing players to fling their feathered friends against precarious piles of pigs in a bid to win real money for the first time. The game is accessible through the WorldWinner iOS app or on WorldWinner.com, joining the studio's other real-money tournament games like Wheel of Fortune, Solitaire, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. "It's really the original Angry Birds physics game -- and obviously Rovio's done a number of different derivatives using the iconography -- but this is the core physics game of shooting birds and killing pigs," WorldWinner boss Jeremy Shea told Engadget.
'Angry Birds' goes full NFL ahead of Super Bowl LII
Fans of both Angry Birds and the NFL can get excited together with new Super Bowl LII content in the popular free-to-play mobile game from Rovio. Angry Birds 2 players can now outfit their avian characters with any of the 32 official NFL jerseys and helmets while competing in new levels and in-game competitions. Angry Birds Evolution now includes NFL characters to defeat in the strategy game, and you will find a new bird called the "Quarterback." Evolution's player vs. player mode (The Oinktagon) has also been transformed into a football field in celebration.
'Angry Birds' will celebrate its 10th anniversary with another movie
How will you celebrate the 10th anniversary of one of Finland's biggest exports? No, I'm not talking about electrical machinery or oil -- I mean Angry Birds. Well, Columbia Pictures and Sony are doing so with a sequel to the furious fowl's silver screen debut, aptly titled The Angry Birds Movie 2. A Rovio blog post details that the film will be released September 20th, 2019 and that Thurop Van Orman and John Rice will serve as director and co-director, respectively. Maybe the production team can come up with a better title in two years' time.
Yes, 'The Angry Birds Movie' will have a sequel
Rovio has had trouble recreating the success of the first Angry Birds with each successive sequel, but that isn't stopping the Finnish developer from trying the same with the movie based on its biggest franchise. The first film made $346,917,138 worldwide according to Box Office Mojo, and Wall Street Journal writes that its budget was only $73 million. So, of course, optioning a sequel makes a lot of sense. There aren't any details beyond Rovio CEO Katie Levoranta saying that pre-production is under way, though. Will Jason Sudekis and Peter Dinklage reprise their roles? That's up in the air, but last we saw him, he was busy helping a certain Mother of Dragons.
